


Family and Friends

by Silex



Series: Escaping the Shadow [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Alternate Hogwarts House Sorting, Family Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-29 22:17:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15082889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/pseuds/Silex
Summary: After Draco was sorted into Hufflepuff things were decidedly different for him, as they were for the rest of the Malfoy family. Despite his strained relationship with his father, he'd managing well enough for himself and things are mostly settling down for his family. Then in his fourth year there came the one-two punch of the Quidditch World Cup and the Tri-Wizard Tournament. It's a lot for both him and his family to take in, especially when what a child thinks is important is so different from their parents' views.





	Family and Friends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amanthya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amanthya/gifts).



> Amanthya gave me a lovely review asking if I was going to continue _Escaping the Shadow_ , which had been a one-shot. I asked them what they'd like to see and thought it over for a bit. This is what I came up with. Amanthya, sorry I took so long - I hope this meets your expectations.

Narcissa sat at the dinner table with Lucius, watching her husband carefully. He was in quite good humor tonight, the kind of excessive cheerfulness that usually came with company being over. It was the happiest she’d seen him since the incident at the World Cup. Meeting up with his old friends and reminiscing about the glory days of their youth had done him a world of good. She’d wished that they hadn’t gone so far as to reenact their youthful misdeeds as well, especially when someone had to ruin it by sending off the Dark Mark. Anyone could have done it, but the circumstances were troubling. Harry Potter’s wand and the Crouch family’s elf.

The house-elf couldn’t have cast it, but that it had been Bartemius’ servant who was found with the wand was ominous.

A threat had been made, but against who? Harry Potter was the obvious choice, a threat and an attempt to frame him for something that he couldn’t possibly have done. The number of people who could cast _Morsmordre_ was small and she knew all of those who had been present at the time. It hadn’t been any of them, for they were all as shaken as Lucius had been.

And now Lucius was trying to convince himself of something, which meant she knew what would happen next.

“You know, I’ve been thinking about things. You were right about Draco not going to Durmstrang.”

That had not been what she’d expecting to hear.

Her surprise must have been obvious, for Lucius’ shrank, not vanishing entirely, but becoming the ghost of a real one, “It wouldn’t have been good for him. I don’t think that Igor is teaching his students…the right sort of things.”

Ah, so that was what it was.

“So you think…” she trailed off so that Lucius could finish for her. If he was in a good mood she wanted to humor it, nurture it. The mood at Malfoy Manner had been too dark for too long.

“That Krum threw a tantrum after his loss,” Lucius nodded.

“That would explain Igor’s panic,” Narcissa said, as she knew was expected of her. Lucius was building a narrative, one that made sense and there was no harm in helping him along. Neither of them had to believe it, she certainly didn’t, not when it didn’t account for Harry Potter’s want and Bartemius’ house-elf.

It was the elf, she decided, that she liked the least. The boy’s wand was the easiest thing to explain, that he’d dropped it during all the confusion, but the elf.

She didn’t like the implications of that.

On the surface the explanation was simple, someone taking a jab at him, hitting where they believed it would hurt most.

Lucius’ smile grew fake again, “Exactly.”

He didn’t believe it either then.

Still, having a story they could agree on was important. It had saved them in the past after all.

A story, even one built on lies, was a comfort.

And until she had a better one she was going to stick with her husband’s.

She’d been doing some digging of her own of course, carefully since everyone was at least pretending to be badly shaken by what had happened. Those that weren’t were adamant that it hadn’t been them and emboldened despite not knowing who it had been. She’d have to keep careful track of them, the ones who were rejoicing in the possibility of another, unknown ally. They were the ones who would be the most dangerous to her family.

Fortunately, Lucius was of the same mindset for different reasons. He wasn’t young anymore, he had a reputation and, like it or not, a family to worry about. He was a lot of things, but he wasn’t Bartemius Crouch. He might despise Draco for ending up in Hufflepuff, bringing what he viewed as the end of the Malfoy family reputation, but he’d never try to kill the boy.

He’d said as much to her, when the basilisk had been on the prowl at Hogwarts. Late at night he’d woken her up to talk. She’d only just fallen asleep, crying and sick with worry over what might happen to Draco. Lucius had shaken her awake, held her tightly against him, so hard she could barely breathe and told her not to worry, that the basilisk had been brought to the school by Salazar Slytherin and that there was no need to worry about Draco. It would know that he was a pureblood and that he was from one of the good families, despite all his mistakes so it would never hurt him.

Lucius had genuinely believed what he said, wasn’t at all afraid that Draco might be the next victim. That was how she knew that Lucius, despite his anger, still cared.

It made him a far better man than so many others held in far higher regard.

They ate the rest of their meal in thoughtful silence, occasional, fleeting smiles when they looked up and their eyes met.

“It was a good meal,” Lucius said as he finished.

That was a routine that amazed Narcissa by the fact that it was still ongoing. Ever since Dobby had been freed she’d taken over in the kitchen because it gave her something to do, something to occupy her mind and hands. Initially the compliment had been backhanded, an attempt by Lucius to assuage the sting from the loss of their servant. ‘I’m surprised how well you can cook’, he’d told her, ‘Unbecoming as it is that you need to’.

The surprise was long gone, fallen into routine and replaced by sincerity.

She loved it so much when Lucius was sincere, which was why she didn’t mind cooking for him.

It was such a shame that he didn’t allow himself to be sincere more often, but she supposed that it was the price one paid for making mistakes such as he had and needing to build a mask of lies to avoid consequences. It was a mask she helped maintain and was truly thankful for. Without it she never would have had the life she did, a loving husband and a son who meant the world to her.

Draco was what made it all worth it.

And Lucius, despite his anger and the way he felt compelled to act for the rest of the world, felt the same.

It was what set them above people like Bartemius Crouch, people who would climb to safety at the cost of their own family.

Narcissa began to gather the plates and silver.

Lucius stood up, his expression darkening momentarily, “I’ll be retiring to my study. You can go to bed without me.”

She knew exactly what he meant, he needed to think things over and was giving her the chance to do so as well. He wouldn’t be getting much sleep that night, and though she would be in the bedroom, she wouldn’t be sleeping either. When he eventually came in he’d find her lying down, eyes closed of course. She didn’t need him knowing and worrying, not when he had enough worries of his own.

They would spend the night thinking and in the morning, over breakfast, they would discuss their thoughts.

Or as much as they were willing to discuss.

Lucius didn’t need to know that she’d be reaching out to their friends, specifically the ones who had been fearful and had children. Lucius had seen Draco having ended up in Hufflepuff as a sign of having raised him wrong somehow, but the events at the World Cup had Narcissa thinking about the families who had raised their children right.

Had they done too good a job of it?

There were bound to be plenty of other individuals losing sleep that night, especially given the news from Hogwarts. Draco hadn’t written to her about it yet, but rumor flew faster than any owl, and she was sure she’d hear from him when he had something to say.

\---

“Harry might be _a_ Hogwarts Champion,” Draco said carefully, “But Cedric is _our_ champion. At least that’s my opinion on it.”

After spending his first year at Hogwarts nearly friendless he’d gotten a bit more careful choosing his words.

“He’s right,” Justin said quickly, then looked at Draco, surprised.

The two of them were often at odds, mutually tolerant after the events of two years ago, but not the friends that Ernie wanted them to be. It wasn’t often that they agreed and Justin seemed to feel the need to elaborate, “We can cheer for Harry because he’s from Hogwarts, but Cedric is the one we really need to support. This is our chance to –”

“Figure out what’s going on,” Ernie cut him off. “How did Harry manage to do it? It’s not fair!”

Draco understood the exact kind of fairness his friend was talking about. It was the kind that Draco himself had spent most of his first year dwelling on. If the world was fair in that way he’d have been in Slytherin and might still be on speaking terms with his father. Then again, that was what his father had told him back when the basilisk was on its rampage and he took most of what his father said with a grain of salt.

“It’s not fair,” Draco said acidly, “But that’s the way things work. You just need to look at who gets the advantage from the unfairness to figure things out.”

Though that was a lesson that lined up with his father’s way of thinking it was one he’d learned from his mother. She could turn any situation to her benefit, a skill he wished he was better at emulating.

“Harry obviously!” Justin and Ernie said at once.

It was what he would have expected of the Muggle-born, but he’d hoped more from Ernie. There were times when he had a hard time believing that Ernest came from such a respectable family.

“Really?” Draco scowled, “How is being publically humiliated, if not killed, during the first challenge going to benefit him?”

The pair looked at him, realization slowly dawning.

“You don’t think…” Justin’s voice dropped to a fearful whisper, “That whoever went after the Weasleys is at it again?”

Draco winced. It was the only reason he had yet to be thrown out of his house, because he’d known where the diary had come from and had remained silent. It had been a brilliant ruse on his father’s part, showing that any wizard from any respectable family, not that the Weasleys were especially respectable, could fall sway to the Dark Lord. Discredit the Weasleys, reaffirm his own innocence and possibly get Hogwarts shut down and Dumbledore replaced. Draco had only managed to figure it out over the summer, well after the fact, but it had been something to throw in his father’s face. Blackmail material that would keep him safe.

“Probably not,” Draco said at last, realizing that he’d been lost in thought, “But the motive is similar. Harry has to compete, everyone loves him, and he doesn’t stand a chance. Champions have died in the past and I bet that’s what whoever put his name in the goblet is hoping for.”

Because it made perfect sense to Draco. What better way to not only get rid of Harry, but to get back at everyone who had rejoiced when the Dark Lord was defeated? The real question then became, how did some former Deatheater get onto school grounds and get Harry’s name into the goblet? In all honesty, it wasn’t even that much of a stretch to imagine, given how Sirius Black had spent most of the previous year stalking the school grounds, waiting to make an attempt on Harry’s life. If Professor Snape hadn’t been there to intervene things would have turned out very badly.

The whole previous year had been a fiasco and something Draco didn’t want to think about. Admittedly, a large part of it was purely personal. If not for that particularly humiliating defeat by Slytherin, Hufflepuff would have had a shot at the House Quidditch Cup. As it was, Draco wasn’t sure if his nose was ever going to be the same.

Ernie looked around nervously, “Do you think it’s Black again? I mean they never caught him and…”

“Snape’s more likely if you ask me,” Justin interjected, “You look at the way he treats Harry. It’s completely unfair and he always struck me as the sleazy, underhanded sort. I bet that there’s nothing he’d like more than to see Harry get hurt or worse.”

The motive was there, Draco supposed, but it was too convoluted. His father had taught Draco, through unwitting example, that overly convoluted schemes were far too likely to come back and bite you. An accident during class would be far easier and it overlooked one glaringly obvious detail, “If Professor Snape wanted Harry dead he could have just shown up a few minutes too late and let Black do it. Snape saved his life.”

“Maybe, but what if that was just a ruse?” Having already agreed with him once it was clear that Justin felt the need not to do it a second time as a matter of principle, “I mean he was supposed to have been a Deatheater so what better way to look innocent than to save Harry only to go back and off him later? That way he gets to have his cake and eat it too.”

Draco glared at him, “So was my father, and the parents plenty of my friends. There are a lot of former Deatheaters out there who wouldn’t want anything to do with this sort of thing.”

If he was going to be truthful, parents of former friends of his was more accurate. It was funny how none of those friendships had survived his being sorted into the wrong House. He’d tried to talk to them afterwards and the distain they’d treated him with had been a shock. So he’d gravitated towards the more respectable members of his own House and eventually managed to strike up a friendship with Ernest Macmillan and Justin Finch-Fletchley had been part of the deal. Justin wasn’t exactly Draco’s friend, but he was Ernie’s so the two of them tried to get along, even if he found the Muggle-born to be insufferably arrogant about some things. Hearing endlessly about Muggle sports and Muggle music and the like as though he was supposed to know about any of it was not something he could even pretend to care for.

“So if it wasn’t Black or Snape,” Justin muttered thoughtfully before looking at Draco, “Then we need to figure out who it is.”

Draco knew the look.

“Of course,” he rolled his eyes, “Next Wednesday when we have our big ‘Former Deatheater Tea and Luncheon’ I’ll just ask around to see who’s making an attempt to off Potter this year and while I’m at it I’ll ask how they’re managing to get into the castle without being caught. Do you really think that we all have meetings or even talk to each other? What happened was…a horrible mess, but it’s in the past and I’d like to keep it there. Unless this is a whole ‘Heir of Slytherin’ thing again and we’re just going to start pointing fingers at random. We all know how that turned out.”

That shut Justin up. Because all three of them had believed it to be true, especially Draco. He’d wanted it to be true because there was no love lost between Harry and the Slytherins. If Harry really was a new Dark Lord rising to power then it meant that if Draco could have thrown his lot in with him he’d have been able to…repeat all of his father’s mistakes, just like his father wanted him to do.

That was what set most of his Housemates apart from the sort of people he’d grown up around. Plenty of them were proud of their heritage and weren’t afraid to say so, but they cared more about their own accomplishments. Justin certainly wasn’t shy about bragging about his family, not that most people even knew what any of it was supposed to mean, being Muggle stuff. The difference was, they didn’t fall back on it, instead they focused more on what they could do and a lot less on what other people could do for them. It was something he could understand more than he wanted to, especially as he became increasingly convinced that his father had dragged the Malfoy family name through the mud and was reduced to sniping at other pure-blood families in the hope of dragging them down to his level. If his father had any sense he would have been trying to rebuild rather than wallowing in past glories that he hadn’t even been around for.

Of course that did nothing to help with the matter at hand.

And dwelling on it when they had nothing to go on wasn’t helpful either.

In situations like that there was nothing more helpful than a good distraction and he knew exactly how to manage that.

“How about instead of sitting around angry and working ourselves up over what we don’t know we help get ready for Cedric’s party? There’s plenty of time to figure things out before the first task, but you’re right that we can’t let this ruin things for us. This is Hufflepuff’s chance to shine,” Draco smiled, “Let’s go to the kitchens.”

That was one good thing about Hufflepuff, even Draco was willing to admit as much. Their proximity to the kitchens meant that they had free access to them. Of course finding out that the House’s biggest secret was how to get into the kitchens without anyone knowing had been rather disappointing at first. Now he had to agree that there were advantages to it. Being able to walk into the kitchens for a midnight snack after a long night of studying was enjoyable, and the house-elves at Hogwarts were nothing like the good for nothing one his family had kept. To be honest, he was glad to lose Dobby, the elf had been more trouble than he’d been worth. The contrast of how the Hogwarts elves acted like proper, respectful servants made it clear.

“What kind of cake do you think Cedric is going to want?” Draco wondered as they left the dorms.

“Do you think they’ll be able to make it in time?”

Justin just had to be difficult.

“Of course they will,” Draco said with long suffering patience, “They’re house-elves. They live for that sort of thing. The real question is, if I give them the money, will they get Butterbeer for us.”

Since he and his father had stopped talking it went without saying that Draco didn’t have as much spending money as he’d like. His parents gave him enough to buy school supplies and maintain appearances, as was fitting for a Malfoy. Other than that he had to make due. It wasn’t just Butterbeer he planned to send the elves out for. He was planning a party that would leave him without much to spend until Christmas, when his mother sent him his gifts, just from her, never from his father, but it would be worth it for two reasons. First, he didn’t need the rest of the school knowing how bad things were between him and his father. The gossip was bad enough. Second, it wasn’t just Cedric being chosen for the tournament that he was happy about. Ernie was right that it was Hufflepuff’s chance of gaining the spotlight, but not just because of Cedric. Draco was sure that, if he asked around, pressed his father a little and maybe even did the unthinkable and spoke with Harry, he might be able to figure out who had put Harry’s name in the goblet.

He had nothing against Harry really, despite thinking that he was a horrible showoff. It was petty desire to spite his father that kept him from wanting anything to do with Harry. Draco had been adamant that if his father wanted the two of them to end up friends then it was all the more reason to avoid The Boy Who Lived, which was a wonderful title, rolled off the tongue just like You-Know-Who. Draco knew that he was being foolish and if he wanted to accomplish anything then he’d have to get over it which left him needing to carefully weigh the situation.

He wanted to help Cedric win the Tournament, but if he wanted to figure out who was after Harry he’d also need to help him. It was a case of conflicting priorities and he needed to carefully determine which one made him most likely to come out the winner himself. More than anything he wanted to write to his mother about it, but he couldn’t think of how to put that letter into words. She’d know exactly what to do and perhaps even who to suspect. After all, she was the one who attended dinners with so many former and not-so former Deatheaters and hangers-on.

Of course the list of suspects were short and he’d met or at least seen most of the likely ones in person. They’d been the ones his parents had been spending time with at the World Cup, the ones his father had gotten full of drunken bravado with. Drunk enough and brave enough to attack some stupid, defenseless Muggles. That was what pureblood pride seemed to mean to so many of them. Draco fancied himself better than that.

Unlike the random attacks with the basilisk, this was precise, focused, meaning that it could have been the parent of a student. They’d just need to make an excuse to visit the school, perhaps to speak with one of the teachers about something, which further narrowed the possibilities. There were other suspects of course, but he wanted to be open to possibilities.

In his opinion Karkaroff was the most likely suspect, but even that didn’t make sense unless the whole thing was about making Hogwarts and Dumbledore look bad. Draco didn’t think that the headmaster of Durmstrang would be that petty. A coward maybe, conniving certainly, but not petty. Unless there was someone else, someone above him commanding him to act. Despite being Headmaster of a respectable school Karkaroff was more of a follower.

Draco didn’t want to think about it, but there was a chance that what some of his father’s friends believed was true, that the Dark Lord, or at least some aspect of him might still be alive. If there were other things like the diary, and Karkaroff had one the results would be far more dangerous than a few people getting petrified.

It was a suspicion, but not enough to go to anyone about.


End file.
